Author
Topic: World Cup of Darts - Report and thoughts on the format (Read 1712 times)

England won the second World Cup of Darts on Sunday evening, beating Australia in the final after a sudden death leg.

It was especially satisfying for me as I sat watching it with the in-laws from Australia

I am not altogether keen on the format. Each country has two players only representing them. In the early rounds there are two singles matches worth one point each and this is followed by a doubles match worth two points.

So basically a team can lose both their singles matches but then win the doubles and tie the match at two points all. Should this happen it then goes to a sudden death leg of doubles with nearest the bull throwing first.

In the final it was increased to the first to four points with the two players palying each other in four singles legs. This meant in effect, the match could have been won had one country won all four singles. However, with England 3-0 up and Paul Nicholson not having the best of games, Adrian Lewis suddenly imploded and started throwing like a three year old!

He allowed Nicholson right back into their game and the Aussie won to make it 3-1 on points and the doubles leg was needed after all. Once again this was worth two points and the Aussies duly won as Lewis continued to throw poorly despite Phil Taylors best efforts.

The two captains, Phil Taylor and Simon Whitlock, then threw for the right to throw first and, after several outer bulls each, Whitlock once more threw an outer, before Taylor finally hit the inner bull and gave England the all important first throw.

In a nervy decider all four players had at least three darts at winning the match and all four missed handsomely!! Eventually it was Adrian Lewis (well he had to finally hit something!) to take out the double 5 and make England world champions, taking the crown off Holland who had won the inaugural tournament.

Did anyone else watch any of it and what are your thoughts on the format?

Personally, I would like to see at least three players representing each country and preferably four. I would then like to see groups rather than straight knockouts so that countries have more than just one chance and hopefully that way the cream of teams will shine through. I would do away with the silly current points scoring and have each win for singles or doubles worth one point. If there are say six matches a game could finish 3-3 and each country would get one point.

After the round robin the top of each group would progress to the semi-finals. If two teams finish level on points then legs differenece would decide and if still level then the head to head followed by the highest team average score on three darts.

i did watch it belle,i think some countrys would struggle to find pro darts players to make up a good team,although from some of the darts thrown maybe not did you see what a bad sportsman nicholson was at the end of the match,refusing to sign the back of the dartboard which they auction off for charity much to the distain of lewis who called him a knob ,here you go mate watch the cliphttp://youtu.be/q3ZqVJtbUSg

i did watch it belle,i think some countrys would struggle to find pro darts players to make up a good team,although from some of the darts thrown maybe not did you see what a bad sportsman nicholson was at the end of the match,refusing to sign the back of the dartboard which they auction off for charity much to the distain of lewis who called him a knob ,here you go mate watch the cliphttp://youtu.be/q3ZqVJtbUSg

I did see that at the end Dave. At one point I thought that it was going to break out into a fight!!!! Lewis was pointing his finger at Nicholson, he then walked away but went back for more. Nicholson was distraught at the end, but there was no need for him to not sign the board like a spoilt little child.